The Once and Future King
by Kaen Okami
Summary: For nineteen years, Prince Aziru, son of Azula, is raised to feel nothing but burning hatred for his family of traitors, and to win back his mother's throne and his own birthright at any cost. He is trained to fight for the day he dethrones Fire Lord Zuko - the day he kills his father. Contains ZUCEST.
1. Azula's Lullaby

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**A/N – The lines at the beginning of each chapter are from **_**Mordred's Lullaby **_**by Heather Dale. I was listening to it, and I thought that it sounded like the kind of thing Azula would sing to her kid, and then this whole story happened. Warning you right now, the main character is the product of Zuko/Azula incest (in keeping with the original tales of King Arthur, which the song and the title of this story are inspired by), so if that's not your thing, this isn't the story for you. If you'll stay to read it, enjoy!**

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_Hush, child, darkness will rise from the deep, and carry you down into sleep, child..._

He is one, and right now his mother's arms are his whole world. She gently cradles Aziru to her chest, murmuring a lullaby into his ear. Her son and heir - the only child she has and will ever have - will always be treated more carefully than anything else. Though he can't yet understand the words or the meaning behind them, her song makes him feel safe, and he sinks into sleep before she's finished.

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	2. Just Like Mother

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_Darkness will rise from the deep, and carry you down into sleep. _

He is two, and he watches with wide, amazed eyes as she calls up her blue fire, glowing brighter than usual in the twilight. Moving her fingers deftly, she shapes the flames into a brilliant azure dragon that twists, arcs, and rolls in her expert hands. She's let Aziru watch her soldiers train before - never further than a few steps from her side, though - but this is the first time she's shown him _her _bending.

Excited and eager to emulate his mother, Aziru cups his hands like hers, expecting flames to burst into being there too...only to be disappointed when none came. Tears start to well up in his eyes, but Mother extinguishes her fire, and leans closer to gently cup his cheek.

"It's all right. Don't get upset," she soothes. "Before long, you'll be able to do it too."

"Like Mama?"

She smiles at him. "That's right. Just like Mama."

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	3. The Enemy

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_Guileless son, I'll shape your belief..._

He is three, listening, as captivated as if it's his first time hearing it, to her stories of the world war from ten years ago. It's much bigger than the civil war raging in the Fire Nation now between his mother and his uncle, and Aziru finds it to be much more exciting too. She tells of great battles like the Day of Black Sun, where she effortlessly crushed her opponents; of how she conquered Ba Sing Se, which no army had been able to do in a hundred years of war, in three days just by her own cleverness; of the Day of the Comet, when victory, one last glorious victory, had been in the nation's grasp...only to be snatched away by the traitor Zuko, the prejudiced Avatar, and their peasant allies.

"Because of them, everything was ruined," Mother says, venom coming into her voice. "And it's getting worse every day. As you grow up, Aziru, you'll see for yourself how they have hurt our nation. They are the enemies of the world. If we do not act, then before long it will be too late to stop them and reverse what they've done."

Aziru does not know what she means by this yet, or what exactly they have to do. But at his young age, he comprehends her message at its most basic: Zuko and everyone who works with him are the bad people, and his mother and everyone under her are the good ones. He understands _that _perfectly.

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	4. The Traitor's Tale

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_...And you'll always know that your father's a thief. _

He is four, and he is looking at the face of his father for the first time. He doesn't know it, of course: to Aziru, it is only the face of his treacherous uncle, the man he has to kill.

"My worthless older brother," Mother tells him, running one sharp-nailed finger down the side of the portrait. "Traitor Zuko. He does not deserve to be called Fire Lord."

Aziru nods agreement (he has no reason to doubt her) and scrutinizes the dark, finely drawn ink lines of Zuko's face. His uncle looks up at him from the scroll with a forbidding expression. Even without too much detail, the muscles of his face look tensed, he is unsmiling, and his good eye is as narrowed as the one seared shut. It's the scar on the man's right eye that draws Aziru's attention. "Where'd that come from?"

"Ozai." She never says his grandfather's name without a considerable amount of bitterness put into the word. "When Zuko was younger, he disrespected him during a war meeting, and as punishment, Ozai declared that he would fight him in Agni Kai. But for all his bravado, Zuko is a cowardly weakling at his core. He refused to fight, and got on all fours on the ground, crying and begging for mercy. Because he would not fight back, Ozai was able to burn his face to teach him a lesson."

Aziru looks up at her, wide-eyed. That could _happen?_ "But you _can't_ just say no," he protests. "You _have _to fight it. It's about honor, right? Doesn't he care about that?"

Mother gives a short, mirthless laugh. "Zuko will go on and on like you wouldn't believe about how important honor is to him, but his actions say something else entirely. He disrespected our traditions, betrayed our nation, stole the throne, threw his own sister in an asylum to rot, and offered up our people to the other nations to do with as they please. Honor means nothing to a traitor like him, Aziru."

It makes sense to him, though he wonders what _is _important to a man like that, who has clearly shown that so many things - honor, justice, the ties of blood - are meaningless to him. He can't understand why his uncle would do all those things. For power, maybe? He voices his guess to Mother, and she shakes her head.

"The very first thing he did after taking the throne was to surrender to the other nations. He knew that they'd take every opportunity to weaken and restrict the Fire Nation, which they did as quickly as possible. No, he wasn't after power; if you intend to use a sword, you don't break it first. It just doesn't make sense. The only logical answers I can think of is that he did all this just to spite us, or out of petty revenge for being punished by our father. He always _was _an entitled little brat."

Aziru is stunned. That can't be right...but then again, he can't think of an explanation himself, and Mother would know her brother better than most people. At that point, she takes the scroll back. She holds it at arm's length between two fingers, over a waste bin.

"He was always so spoiled and soft," she says almost to herself, narrowing her eyes at her brother's face. The acrid scent of burning ink and paper fills the room as blue flames crawl over it. "The only reason the people still in his territory haven't revolted against him yet is that he's protected by the Avatar. But we'll take care of that in good time."

The scroll burns away completely, and Mother shakes its ashes off her hand and turns to leave the room, signifying that they are done here. But Aziru has one more thing to ask her.

"Mama, wait a second!" She stops and turns her head to look at him. "Your dad challenged Zuko to an Agni Kai, and hurt him...Would you ever do that to me?"

"Would you ever disrespect me, Aziru?"

"No," he says, shaking his head.

"Well, then..." Her lips curve up into a smile. "Why would I ever do a thing like that?"

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	5. Let You Down

He is five, and even though he cannot yet bend, Aziru is training hard.

Though his shirt is stuck to him with sweat and every muscle in his body screams for mercy, the young prince forces his exhausted body to move just as fast and as forcefully as it had at the beginning of the practice session, to respond immediately to each and every one of his mother's sharp commands. _Archer stance, straight punch, reverse punch, cat stance, front kick, middle palm block, reverse punch, front kick -_

"Enough."

Aziru's not done yet - he knows it's nowhere _near _enough - but he stops mid-kick the instant Mother says it. He returns to natural stance, turns his head to her, and he feels everything inside him crumble to nothing at the disappointment in her eyes as she looks at him. Oh, no...What did he do wrong?

But she won't say. She masks her feelings as she always does, with her face impassive and voice flat and level as she tells him, "That's enough for today. Go back to your room and study the forms more carefully."

"Are...Are you coming with me?" His voice is weak from exertion, and though he can't stand the silence that tells him he's let her down again, he wants her with him on the long walk home. Maybe he didn't mess _everything _up, and she'll have at least one word of praise for him.

"No - " Aziru fights not to let his body sag or let sadness show on his face, he can't make Mother feel bad like that - "I'm going to stay here for a little while. You get back home and I'll be there soon."

She turns away from him to gaze at the view from the edge of the wide cliff, out over the ocean turned golden by the setting sun. The deep reddish-black outlines of the other Fire Nation islands (some of them under his mother's control, some under his uncle's) are visible on the horizon. Aziru wants to protest, but he know it won't do any good, and he despondently starts to make his way down the rocky path that will take him back home.

He's almost out of earshot when he hears it: "Unbelievable."

He freezes in his tracks, feeling like the one little word has knocked the wind out of him. Slowly, he turns back and takes a few steps back up the path until he can see Mother, still looking out at the islands on the horizon with narrowed eyes. Is she talking to herself again?

"Unbelievable," she hisses, "that you can do this to me from an ocean away, without even meaning to. I thought the strength of our blood would overpower your personal weaknesses, but clearly a few have slipped into him. Was everything else not enough, that now you have to rob me of a powerful heir? You torment me from the other side of the nation, with your child."

Oh...She's not talking about him. Aziru, taken aback by the realization, sucks in a gasp. Mother _never _talks about his father; this is the first time he's heard her mention him at all. But just then she stops talking, and she looks suddenly tense and alert. He realizes she heard him exactly one second before she turns and sees him standing there.

Her eyes widen and her lips fall open in surprise. He's in for it now, he knows, he should never have been listening in on her. Aziru is frozen like a rabbit-newt facing a hunter's arrow, but Mother is looking at him like she's the one caught in wrongdoing.

"Aziru..." she breathes. "You heard...?"

He gives a shaky nod, and sees something unfamiliar flash in her eyes. She takes a step forward, and he flinches back in spite of himself. "Aziru..." she repeats, softer than before. "Aziru, I...I didn't..."

Aziru's nerve breaks, and he whips around and sprints down the path. Mother is disappointed in him. With his weakness he's let her down, like everyone else in her life.

Behind him, Mother cries out, "Aziru, I didn't mean it! _Aziru!" _

_Does she mean that?_ he wonders as he keeps running. He knows he'll be punished, but he doesn't care, he can't stay near her right now. Before long, he's back in his room at the palace; Mother didn't follow him and he's too exhausted to wonder why.

Normally, he studies firebending forms eagerly, thirsty for knowledge, but tonight he does so mechanically, feeling like he wouldn't be doing it at all if not told to. It doesn't occur to him to go to bed, and he's on his bed poring over a scroll with heavy eyelids in the middle of the night when Mother comes in, and tells him that he can stop, and that he should sleep now.

She helps him clear his scrolls and books away and gets him settled in bed. Gently rubbing his back, she promises him that of course she what she'd said before wasn't right, she'd just been a little frustrated and said something she didn't mean, that was all, and he was really doing very well in training for his age, so he shouldn't think anything of it. His mother was very proud of him and that's what he should always think about.

But though Aziru knows she means it _(does she does she really)_, he can hear a quiet underlying desperation in her voice that he doesn't understand. Is she trying so hard to convince him that what she says is true, or...trying to convince herself?

Mother stays with him until she's sure he's fallen fast asleep, and she leaves without a sound. Left alone in the dark, he opens his eyes. Now he _knows _something's really bothering her: faking sleep has never come close to working on her before. After about another half hour of lying awake (it always takes Mother a long time to turn off her thoughts and fall asleep herself), he hops out of bed and slips silently down the hall, making sure to avoid all the floorboards that creak.

Aziru moves like a small shadow through the halls of the palace. That's what Mother calls it, but he knows it is a poor imitation of the true Royal Palace on the other side of the nation. All this place is, is a glorified fortress. He is young, but he knows his home well enough to be able to steer clear of the guards and servants still active at night, and he is able to make his way down to one of the less-used training courts.

He does not know for sure what's on his mother's mind, but he is absolutely certain that it's to do with him at least in part. He has disappointed Mother with his failures, just like his father (whoever the man was) before him. He is determined that it will never happen again if he can help it. Standing in the center of the training court, he takes a deep breath and drops into the first stance. For the next few hours, he trains, and trains, and trains, and forgets everything else.


End file.
